Leave
by butimbroken
Summary: Buffy/Angelus. AU. A messy breakup, some stupid choices. MB Stories Series. COMPLETE.


**Don't own a thing.**

**This is an addition to my line of (probably most if not all unrelated) stories based on lyrics from every MB20 song.**

**"Leave"**

After five and a half years in the perfect relationship, everything had fallen to pieces. It seemed almost as if it'd happened overnight, too. One minute they were happy, the next everything was a mess.

Buffy was trying to put the pieces together, giving things some space, before trying to figure out what to do next, where to go from there.

_It's Amazing, How You Make Your Face Just Like A Wall_  
_How You Take Your Heart, And Turn It Off_  
_How I Turn My Head And Lose It All_

Apparently, that didn't sit well with Angelus, though.

At first, he had tried to win her back, saying the mistakes made were nothing, that they could just pick back up, act as though nothing had happened. She couldn't just up and do that, he didn't understand. And didn't agree with giving it time.

Apparently, it just made things worse.

_It's Unnerving, How Just One Move Puts Me By Myself_

He started turning cold, pushing away, being cruel.

Punishing her almost.

He was the one who had hurt her, but acting like the victim in it all.

_There You Go, Just Trusting Someone Else_

It was hardly over two weeks since they had split when he told her he was moving on. He forewarned her that he was taking a trip in a few days to meet someone, to go on without her.

She felt panicked, had some strange feeling in the pit of her stomach that made her know something was going to happen if he went. Something big.

She tried to stop him, even to work it out, but he wasn't listening. She begged and pleaded, but then he left, drove the miles and met his new lady.

Adding insult to injury, he continued his rein of cruelty. He had her call him from his phone to tell her all about the time they were having together. After crying herself to sleep that night, she woke up to texts for her telling all the intimate details of their night together. He called her later to tell her that they were on their way back to his hometown, bringing her there to meet his family, spend the holidays with her.

Something he had never even had her do.

Five and a half years together and she'd never had a holiday with him, never met a single person in his family. But sure, not even one day with her and he was bringing her home.

_I'm Not Saying, There Was Nothing Wrong_  
_I Just Didn't Think You'd Ever Get Tired Of Me_

Buffy was heartbroken, depressed. She was angry.

After one last turn at yelling at him and telling him he was an idiot, she cut off contact with him, wanting nothing more to do with him at the time. He wanted to play games, then he was free to. But she wasn't having any part of it.

If he had any brains in that head of his, he'd come to his senses.

_I Just Didn't Wanna Let It Get Away From Me_

Silence fell between them for the next fifteen days.

She was numb, but trying to ignore it. She'd been at home, crying, moping... but finally she had allowed one of her friends from work drag her out for the night.

She'd even been having a nice time, surprising her greatly.

But then... her phone vibrated and she looked to see a message from him. And her heart stopped.

He told her to congratulate her, he was now engaged.

The world started to spin.

_It's Aggravating, How You Threw Me On And You Tore Me Out_

Sixteen days after even meeting her, and he was engaged. Buffy couldn't believe it.

She even found out he had used her ring they'd picked out together to give to this girl, proposing on their lighthouse.

And in order for him to do that, he'd had to take her on an out of state trip. Again, moving really quickly with the steps of a relationship.

'Who the hell does these things?' she wondered.

_But If That's How It's Gonna Leave, Straight Out From Underneath_  
_Then We'll See Who's Sorry Now_  
_If That's How It's Gonna Stand, When You Know You've Been Depending On_  
_The One You're Leaving Now, The One You're Leaving Out_

After raging to the moon and back, again Buffy cut contact with her ex, unable to deal with him.

Angelus told her their lucky day was going to be on next year's Halloween. She only hoped he'd stop being an airhead by then. She warned him of the mistakes he was making, yelled and cried, but then walked away when nothing worked.

She was growing more and more depressed, and angry. She couldn't believe how he was behaving. How he had gone from being one person, to another.

Her life started crumbling around her. She started pushing people away, becoming closed off. She stopped going out, returning phone calls. She quit going to work until the finally fired her, hell she pretty much stopped leaving her apartment.

Laying in bed, crying her eyes out seemed like a better option.

OoOoO

It was three and a half months later when Darla, Angelus' replacement for her, found a new way to contact her as all the others were taken away as she wanted space. But there she was. And telling her the oh-so good news.

Angelus and her had married. The day before.

There went the end of October. It was the middle of April.

The two of them had known each other for a day past four months when they married.

Buffy and him had been split up just two and a half weeks longer than that.

It was unthinkable.

But it had happened. She found proof, plus she broke her silence with him. He confirmed it, but threw her off all the more by telling her he still was in love with her and wished he was with her. A day after saying "I Do" he was already saying he regretted it.

In an act of stupidity and panic, she begged him to leave, to not do this, to give them another try. But he said it was too late. He loved her, would always... he was sorry for how things had gone... but he moved on, he was married now.

OoOoO

That should have been enough, more than enough even, for her to cut ties... for good. But the supitity continued for months before that finally happened.

He would confess his love to her in letters, emails, texts. She would even send them on to his wife, who was now joining in on conversations to her, aggitating her more.

But it all got to be too much. She knew it was over.

Apparently this Darla person had to be quite amazing, right. And she had no ground to stand on here.

Buffy said everything she felt she needed to say. She told him her anger, her hurt. She told him her feelings of love. She warned him of the mistake he made and how one day he was going to see it. And then she severed ties, letting him go about his life, trying to face going about hers.

**Funny Note: This is the most personal story I have written. This is my life in 2006-2007 in short terms. These events actually made Matchbox Twenty become my favorite band after spending my depressive days with headphones on listening to them on repeat trying to escape the world and get over my issues.**

**My boyfriend and I had split after five and a half years, he went to go meet a girl he'd started talking to online a few weeks later, got engaged sixteen days after meeting her, married her three and a half months after that. And yes, I am still one bitter ass person about it. **

**His wife did find me to tell me. He did go on and on about love and regrets. I get horribly depressed. I wound up cutting ties with him when it got too much and his wife started threatening to kill me and I was like yeah no. **

**Funnier note: I didn't talk to him for three years. Exception of once, I sent him an email the following year on his birthday. He wrote back exactly a month later but I left it at that. And that was only conversation he and I had for three years. Then the jackass popped back up into my life. All of the warnings I had told him about had come true. Which I found funny and also... not. But yeah. I ended up, probably stupidly, back with him. It took a long time but in the end I said I would chance it. **


End file.
